Gazel Razavi, currently Principal of EtonHouse International Pre-School Hong Kong, is an experienced early childhood educator who has a diverse and rich teaching experience. Her exposure to the IB, Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), and local curricula has empowered her with a diverse and innovative approach as an academic leader. She sees children as individual learners who work best in an...

Are there any drawbacks to offering a reward (e.g., fun trip or activity, toy or game, money) to children for doing well in school?

Everyone, adults and children alike, appreciate knowing they have done a good job. The danger in offering rewards, however, is that the result comes from an extrinsic motivation rather than an intrinsic one. This suggests that motivation is adult-controlled,...

The tinkering and making movement has caught on like wildfire at EtonHouse International School Broadrick. Tinkering is the art of 'composing and decomposing physical things to suit a variety of purposes - from practical to whimsical'. (Dale Doughtery, MAKE magazine) In fact, students revel in taking things apart, putting them back together, and making new things. Not surprisingly, students...

A 5-year-old girl wanted to start primary school before all her peers because she had no one to play with at home. Her older siblings had already started school. Her grandmother took her to school and asked if the school would accept her. She promised that if her granddaughter was unable to catch up with lessons, she would voluntarily take her out of school. This happened nearly 60 years ago!

“Where does paper come from?” This question led to an exciting investigation by a group of children at EtonHouse 718 Mountbatten Road that aligned with the central idea ‘Our interactions with the environment and resources impact their sustainability'.

Children are born with an innate desire to explore, form hypotheses, experiment, observe, and develop conclusions. Research and data prove that children’s learning through their senses has a strong connection to thinking and understanding in science and discovery. A few decades ago, the idea that toddlers think like scientists would have been considered preposterous. Jean Piaget, the pioneer...

If we step back in time, the profound work and deep thinking in a group of early childhood settings in Reggio Emilia, Italy was a precious pearl yet to be discovered. If we bring ourselves into the present, the influence of best practice when working alongside young children from Reggio Emilia has become a known leading influence across the world. In 1991, an American newspaper identified a...